Writer: Danny Lee Wynter
Director: Tim Sheader
Coming of age is hard enough in any circumstances, but for a Black gay teenager in working-class Essex in the 1990s, there’s lots stacked against Ted in Danny Lee Wynter’s Ilford Boy, an accomplished and tender second play staged at the Donmar Warehouse. Exploring intergenerational inheritance, different kinds of prejudice and the rhythms of family life as grief rolls through it in shock waves, Wynter’s story is filled with life as Ted searches for who he wants and can be.
When matriarch Eileen dies, she leaves behind three adult daughters and a family home that remains full of as much backchat and frustration as love. Set in 1995 and 1980, daughter Tilly tries to give her own son the freedom to find his way, but the return of her best friend Patrick, an openly gay Black man brings long-held tensions to rise.
At one level, Wynter’s play is about prejudice and the many ways that people see differences between themselves and others, and how this changes behaviours. Ilford Boy has racism, homophobia, class, nationality and weight-based bigotry encased in big discussions about what it means to be a man, to be specifically a Black man and to have a form of British identity in multiheritage families. It is a lot to cover, but Wynter’s sharply observational writing makes character the key, with a cast of believable personalities all dealing with their own challenges. That Wynter offers moments of understanding for everyone gives them added dimensions; people who have known one another for many years and often rehash long-established opinions.
The dialogue is fast-paced and hilarious, filled with references to 80s and 90s cultural icons, television stars, theatre and day-to-day experiences of working-class life. And everyone has a whiplash tongue. One of the sisters, Ann, in response to fussy Jackie asking whether she’s been heard, flashes bac,: “At your volume it’s hard not to.” Later Ted’s semi-absent father Ken scoff’s “of course he’s depressed, he lives in Ilford.”
Underneath there are some really poignant questions about whether male violence can be inherited, as Ken replicates a history of abuse he had with his own father that Ted must try to break; how shamefully afraid some family members still are of Patrick, whose AIDS diagnosis is never openly acknowledged but hints at further grief to come, while the balance between genders, as the sisters are coerced and controlled by their menfolk to different degrees, all shape Ted’s perspective on what a man should be.
With strong performances from Ria Zmitrowicz as Tilly, Craig Stein as Patrick, Lindsay Coulson as welcoming grandmother Eileen and newcomer Leo Whitfield Harris as Ted, Ilford Boy is a coming-of-age story for a young man who loves theatre but wants to please everyone. Finding his own voice in a house full of them becomes his only way forward.
Runs until 28 November 2026
